Prospective adoptive parents

A summary of Patricia Irwin Johnston’s presentation at the 2003 NACAC Conference.

If you have experienced infertility and are thinking about adoption, here are some questions to ask yoruself before moving forward.

Social worker Carol Blake demystifies what can seem to be a nerve wracking and intrusive process--the adoption homestudy.

Quick! Vacuum the rug, dust the furniture, alphabetize the spice rack, the social worker is coming over!

Four years ago, Focus on Adoption profiled Colleen, an 11-year-old girl who desperately wanted to be adopted. The staff at AFABC were touched by this child’s clear-eyed vision of what her future could and should be. Since then, we’ve kept in touch with Colleen’s progress—as you know, each year that a child waits for a family reduces his or her chances of being adopted. We were thrilled that last year Colleen and her new family’s dreams came true. Here her social worker explains how it finally happened.

I first met Colleen when she was only eight years old.

AFABC has prepared this special needs supplement on trauma because, whether we like it or not, trauma is inextricably linked to adoption. Of course, not all children who join their families through adoption have experienced trauma, but many have.

The Adoption Act 1996, regulates adoptions in BC, and is specific about what birth mother expenses prospective adoptive parents might expect to pay [see sidebar]. Medical expenses related to the prenatal care and birth of the baby are not usually covered unless the mother doesn't have medical coverage from any other source. Thankfully, our Medical Services Plan will almost always cover these expenses.

This is not the case in the United States—a fact that prospective adoptive parents considering US adoption need to consider.

It is difficult to conceive why new adoptive parents would not receive employee benefits equal to those biological parents enjoy. As every adoptive parent knows, the process of bringing children home for the first time, introducing them to their new home, and establishing a strong parent-child bond, takes considerable time and work.

However, employers still don’t offer new adoptive parents the same employee benefits as biological parents, particularly in respect to those employers that top up the Employment Insurance payments given by the Canadian government.

A glance at a list of adoption agencies in BC appears to indicate that whole swathes of the province are not served. All but two of BC’s licensed agencies are located in the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley.

Marni Bodner, executive director of Kelowna’s Adoption Centre, emphasizes that while the geographical distribution may give the impression that families or birth parents in isolated communities don’t have access to agencies, this is certainly not the case. 

by Joanne Thalken

The Oregonian newspaper recently ran a story entitled “Sending Black Babies North.” Gabrielle Glaser, a journalist who visited BC recently, and who has shown great interest in Canadian adoptions of African-American children, is the author.

As our social worker was leaving our home after our final homestudy visit, she noticed our latest purchase hanging on the wall—a colourful plaque featuring a whimsical picture of two faces playing instruments and set on a page of musical notes. The plaque is called Musical Masquerade and we bought it to commemorate our adoption process.

Every toddler without a  family is ready for a placement, but not every prospective adoptive family is ready for a toddler. The good news is that the vast majority of parents who have the ability to be effective adoptive parents can develop the skills to parent an adopted toddler, but there are unique concerns and issues that need to be considered.